This invention relates to methods and means of applying intense far-ultraviolet laser radiation to a workpiece. It has application to some of the processes in the fabrication of integrated circuits including processes of laser induced ablation, deposition, impurity implantation and other chemical processes. It has a wide range of applications: from hardening or annealing a workpiece to cutting biological tissue in surgery. Specific embodiments of the invention described herein are particularly concerned with focusing a beam of far-ultraviolet radiation from a laser to an image of high fluence, sufficiently high to cause useful ablative photodecomposition (APD) of the material at the target.